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Piñata economics
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this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2025
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Lefty Memes
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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, discussion and agitprop/stuff that's better fit for a poster than a meme go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
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0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme. Please post agitprop here)
0.5 [Provisional Rule] Use alt text or image descriptions to allow greater accessibility
(Please take a look at our wiki page for the guidelines on how to actually write alternative text!)
We require alternative text (from now referred to as "alt text") to be added to all posts/comments containing media, such as images, animated GIFs, videos, audio files, and custom emojis.
EDIT: For files you share in the comments, a simple summary should be enough if they’re too complex.
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0.5.1 Style tip about abbreviations and short forms
When writing stuff like "lol" and "iirc", it's a good idea to try and replace those with their all caps counterpart
- ofc => OFC
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- ok => OK
- lol => LOL
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- nato => Nato (you don't spell it when talking, right?)
- usa => USA
- prc => PRC
- etc.
Why? Because otherwise (AFAIK), screen readers will try to read them out as actually words instead of spelling them
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Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
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That means condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
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That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
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The only dangerous minority is the rich.
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We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
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Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
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Either way, it's a question of definition.
And it doesn't not belong to me just because you decided it doesn't. What is “belonging” if not a legal status? However, my assertion is that in our capitalist society, we have established a legal system whereby even though you and I produce things, they do not belong to us. Instead, under threat of punishment or, alternatively, the threat of starvation, we give them to another group that has contributed nothing at all. What do you call that? Robbery! What the capitalists call property, they took away from us first. You need to get rid of that neoliberal mindset and stop fighting for their interests and against your own.
This is what you've arbitrarily decided is the case, though, not the reality.
But what does the owner class do? They buy company shares and wait until the money generated by our work lands in their accounts. Let's take a look at a simple calculation: I buy shares in an index fund with 2 million euros. Conservatively estimated, this yields a 6 percent return each year. That means that on December 31, I look at my account and see that 120,000 euros have been transferred to it. But where does this money come from? You earned it with your labor. I didn't contribute anything. Yet your annual salary is probably significantly lower.
Now, of course, you could say that I then use this money to make investments and, for example, buy additional means of production with which wage workers can produce goods and services. But remember: this money was only generated through your work. So why am I the one who is now investing in order to profit even more from it later? Why don't we organize society in such a way that those who do 100% of the work are not also the ones who own the company? Or that the means of production are generally socialized. Profits are distributed fairly, investments are decided democratically, and everyone can participate.
In other words, capitalists are only part of the value creation process because of the way ownership is structured in our society. Not because they contribute anything. Again: everything that has exchange value only has it because of the labor that went into it. Every store, every factory, every commodity. Just everything. We created it all. But it belongs to others.
You and I belong to the vast majority of humanity who have to sell their labor to survive. That's why we have to stick together, comrade. Because there is another group that not only doesn't have to work and lives off our labor, but also accumulates incredible resources and influences politics according to its will. A few super-rich people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos own more than the poorer half of humanity. How can we allow this to happen? We would all be better off.